


Take your Ways

by Prinzenhasserin



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Interlude, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-17 10:39:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11849856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/pseuds/Prinzenhasserin
Summary: Kamet is surprised by a nightly visitor to his bed in the palace.





	Take your Ways

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluecloak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecloak/gifts).



> This is quite short, but I hope you enjoy it anyway! It plays a bit with the concepts you mentioned liking in your prompts.

Kamet woke up with a start. The candle burning at the side of his bed was flickering lightly, not more and not less than through the usual draft. There was some shuffling and clicking from the guards outside of his doorway playing cards as usual.

Nothing was disturbed, no shadow of a king hanging over him to interrogate him— or worse, give gifts. 

And then, the shadow dropped out of the darkest space next to the window, and Kamet took a terrified breath so he could scream.  Before he quite managed, a hand was pressed over his throat.

"Shh," a terribly familiar voice said quietly, "have you any idea of how much I had to pay Haemon to look the other way?"

Kamet recognised the voice, and still considered biting the hand that was holding his mouth close — then again, who knew what the Attolian had last touched. Fear had made him start awake, but now the was feeling only the angry relief that his companion hadn't abandoned him after all. It wasn't a dream, either, the loose bed-sheets cool against his warm hands.

When the hand withdrew, he didn’t shout for the guards. "You should have called ahead," he said instead in a whisper. "If I knew you were coming, I’d have prettied myself up. I’m the King’s new favourite, everyone keeps telling me."

Costis huffed out a breath against his ear, and Kamet shivered. The air turned cold quickly, this far north, but he doubted that was the reason goosebumps had appeared all along his arms. "It’s not so easy being the favourite of a king."

Kamet shifted, just a bit, so that the Attolian wasn’t pressing on his stomach. "You would know," he said against Costis’ sternum. And why was the Attolian so close? There was certainly no need to press together on the bed in the dark. Kamet did not complain, and — so that Costis wouldn't move away either — drew nearer.

The Attolian was heavy, a weight that felt comforting to Kamet. Perhaps not so strange after all, since the strength hidden behind the frame had saved him from bears, drowning, the soldiers of the king.

"I had to leave quite suddenly," Costis murmured. "I apologise for not being here to welcome you back to the palace."

The curtains rustled in the wind, and Kamet felt the Attolian breathing warm puffs of breath against his hair.

"Did you know I knew where the Mede Fleet was stationed?" Kamet asked, louder than he had intended.

He couldn’t see the Attolian clearly in the dark, his eyesight always worse in half-light, but he’d swear he could see his eyes close. "No," Costis said after a while. It sounded ashamed, as if he had just realised he’d been played again, or else the Attolian was a better actor than Kamet thought. 

Kamet had to revise a lot of thoughts in the past couple of months, but he didn’t think he had been wrong about Costis. And he was still lying on top of him.

"I thought you were—" Kamet started, faltered midway through, and then finished anyway with, "—stationed in some far away corner again."

"No," Costis said, still not moving elsewhere. "I was visiting family. The King said I wouldn’t be home for quite some time."

"Where are you going?" Kamet asked, but a stray ray of moonlight took the opportunity to shine on the Attolian’s hair. It gleamed like fine spun threads of silver, and wasn’t that an entirely cliched observation to make.

"You’ll be the Mede empire’s most wanted man," Costis said, and slowly dragged down his hand. It was probably unintended, that it happened to feel like a caress.

Kamet’s interest was probably entirely misplaced. Costis wouldn’t be interested in someone like him, who was paralysed by bears, and couldn’t abide the taste of desert rats, and liked sleeping in the beds that kings provided.

Something must have shown on his face, but he couldn’t have said what, because Costis came nearer.

His hand slipped to the back of his neck, warm and safe. Kamet turned his head, and raised his lips, and then, yes, they were kissing. It was comfortable at first, as if it had been something that happened before, as if it was an every day thing, as if Kamet was kissing free men every day, and wouldn’t be flogged for it.

Maybe it hadn’t been a bad thing, that Costis had left the palace, that Kamet could have gotten used to a life where he didn’t have to think about any master. 

Costis let out a sigh, and Kamet chased after his mouth. The next kiss was wetter, more intense, and Kamet breathed in. Costis smelled comforting, was comforting in every way, shape and form.

The King was a fool to let them go, but Kamet would take it. Would take everything he could, and never let go again. Kamet moved forward, and gave Costis another gentle kiss, so soft it was barely there. A kiss that could be denied at any time, just like the performances at the theatre. Was there anything real about their relationship?

They were right next to each other, and Kamet couldn't see a thing, could only feel their legs barely touching, the warmth of Costis' body crossing over the tiny distance, their hard lengths pressed up right next to each other.

"What are we doing?" he asked.

Costis held the back of his hand against his cheek. "--are you crying?" he asked.

"No," Kamet choked up. "Please-- kiss me again."

Kamet pulled him down, kissed him hard, his hands gripping his hair, and Costis seemed to freeze for an instant before he responded, kissing back with equal fervour.  And then his tongue slipped between his lips, and drank in the taste of him. Kamet pushed his body tightly into Costis, feeling heat and hardness and a need that matched his own.

Costis made a sound, and Kamet moved lower, explored the body of his Attolian with his hands and mouth the way he couldn't exactly with his eyes. A birthmark sat on his right shoulder, and Kamet kissed it in reverence.

"Wait," Costis said, completely out of breath. Then, he moaned, when Kamet kissed him again. "You-- think I'm _leaving_."

Kamet stopped. "--You're not? Is that not why the King sent you home?"

"You think I'll be leaving _you_."

Kamet paused. "There are no permanent relationships for soldiers and slaves," he said, matter of fact. And it was. No slave, and no soldier, could presume were they were sent next.

"Do you not want that?" Costis said, and there was a weight to his words, as if Kamet's answer could change anything about the outcome.

"I do," Kamet said quietly, and this was perhaps the first time he admitted it to himself. He wanted the long-term, he wanted the lifetime, he wanted the love that Ennikar and Immukuk shared, and he wanted it with the stupid Attolian in front of him. There were tears in his eyes still, and he could only hope that Costis choose to ignore them.

"The king sent me to Rhoa," Costis said. "There's two things I have to do there. Keep an eye on the Mede movement along the coast -- and the other on this person my King calls a friend. He's a bit stupid, though, I don't know if he'll notice."

And then Kamet was laughing; crying, still, but laughing -- and it was very hard to kiss someone while laughing, but Kamet fought hard and valiantly, and managed anyway.


End file.
